Seasons of Sorrow (19 page)

“Enough tears for now,” she stated. “I need food.”

They had ordered dinner, and, to Charlotte, it felt like the years before she married Derek all over again. Not for the first time in the last few months, she realized that she missed spending time with her best friend. Derek’s schedule and his need to entertain clients, then the arrival of Adam, had kept Charlotte from spending as much time with her friends as she would have liked. Now, things would be different.

“Ms. Fallon?”

Laura’s hesitant voice broke through Charlotte’s memories of the night before.

“Call me Charlotte, Laura,” she said.

Laura cleared her throat. “Is everything okay,” she paused, “Charlotte?”

With a smile, Charlotte nodded. “Yes, thank you. Just thinking of some things that need my attention today.” She gestured to the large white bakery box on Laura’s desk. “Will you please put those in the break room? I brought bagels and muffins for everyone this morning.”

Laura smiled. “They smell delicious. Thank you, Ms…I mean, Charlotte.”

Charlotte nodded. “Hold my calls for fifteen minutes, please. I have a couple of things to do this morning and I would prefer not to be interrupted.

After Laura nodded, Charlotte walked into her office and sat down at her desk. She booted up her computer and started by sending an email to Nora, asking for information on the status of her divorce case.

Her assistant brought her a cup of coffee and a muffin on a napkin fifteen minutes later. Charlotte didn’t surface from the pile of work stacked on her desk until after noon. Because of her meeting with Agent Bray later, she was cramming an entire day’s work into a little over four hours.

At twelve-thirty, Laura knocked on her door. “Charlotte?”

Charlotte looked up from the files on her desk.

“You said you needed to leave by two today, but you haven’t taken a lunch hour yet, so I wanted to be sure you would have time to eat before you left.”

Charlotte smiled at her assistant. That was very considerate.

“Thanks, Laura. I can’t leave just yet,” she said.

“Well, I’m about to go on my break, it that’s okay. I’ll grab something for you.”

Charlotte nodded absently, becoming reabsorbed in the work she was trying to complete.

“Any preferences?” Laura asked.

“Just bring me back a salad. Chicken Caesar if they have it. House salad if they don’t. Grilled or fried chicken, it doesn’t matter which. And ranch dressing.”

Her assistant gave her a single short nod and left the room. Twenty minutes later, Laura returned, container in hand, with her salad. She sat the container and a bottle of water on the corner of Charlotte’s desk.

Charlotte thanked her absently and finished up the email she was writing as Laura left the room. A glance at her watch told her that she had a little more than an hour to eat and finish up the last of her work.

Quickly, she drank her water and at most of the chicken Caesar salad that Laura brought. By two, she had eaten and done all but a few small tasks that she felt comfortable delegating to her assistant.

After shutting down her computer, Charlotte grabbed her bag and left her office. She stopped a Laura’s desk and gave her a sheet of paper.

“I need this done before you leave today, okay?” Charlotte said. “Oh, and thanks for grabbing me something to eat. I appreciate it.”

Laura smiled. “No problem.” She looked over the list. “Any specific instructions or you just want me to go down the list?” she asked.

“As long as it all gets done, I don’t really care what order you do it in,” Charlotte replied with a smile of her own.

“No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Laura said cheerfully.

Charlotte nodded and left the office. The heat of the day was immense as she emerged from the building and got into her car. The drive to the FBI building near downtown was not as bad as she thought it would be. She arrived within fifteen minutes. Her palms began to sweat slightly as she walked into the lobby and it had nothing to do with the heat outside.

Her anxiety level rose a notch with each step she took. She walked up to the reception desk.

“I’m here to see Special Agent George Bray,” she said to the stern woman behind the desk. “My name is Charlotte Fallon.”

The woman nodded and picked up the phone. “Please take a seat,” she said, gesturing with her other hand toward a group of black chairs nearby.

Charlotte walked to the chairs, perched on the edge of one, and crossed her legs. After a moment she realized she was bouncing her foot from the anxiety coursing through her system. She heard her phone ding in her purse.

Thankful for a distraction, Charlotte pulled her phone out of her purse. It was a text from Greg.

Haven’t heard from u in a while.

Charlotte frowned. She hadn’t texted Greg since their conversation over the weekend. She rarely went more than a day without texting or calling him. As one of her best friends, they communicated regularly, even if it was just a short text or a five minute phone call.

I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.

She heard footsteps echoing in the lobby and looked up. Agent Bray was walking toward her.

Quickly, she added,
I’ll call you later. Dinner tonight?

Ok. Talk to u soon.

“Ms. Fallon?” Agent Bray’s voice was incredulous.

Charlotte looked up as she tucked her phone away in her bag. “Hi, Agent Bray.”

He studied her for a moment. “You’ve cut your hair. It’s very flattering,” he said.

Charlotte blushed slightly and touched the short hair at the nape of her neck. “Thank you.”

“If you’ll come with me,” the agent said.

Charlotte rose and followed him to a bank of elevators. He pressed the button for the third floor and the elevator doors closed. She struggled not to give into the urge to fidget. Being here made her nervous.

A thought hit her out of the blue. “Should I have called my lawyer? I mean, I’m sure that makes me sound guilty, but should I have some kind of representation here?”

The special agent glanced at her. He seemed slightly amused rather than annoyed, which made Charlotte blush again. She was sure she sounded moronic, but she felt completely out of her depth.

“You’ve been cleared of involvement, Ms. Fallon, so, unless you want to confess to some sort of wrongdoing…” he trailed off and smiled slightly when Charlotte shook her head. “Then you’re okay without your attorney present today.”

She blew out a long breath. Agent Bray’s attitude was definitely less brusque than before. It was even mildly flirtatious. Charlotte wasn’t sure how to respond. The special agent was probably in his late thirties and attractive in a conservative way. Surely he wasn’t flirting with her. That had to be unethical, or unprofessional, or something.

“Will Agent Cruz be joining us?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.

“Renee is in the field today.”

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open.

“If you’ll follow me,” Agent Bray said.

Charlotte followed him through a maze of corridors, feeling like a mouse in a lab test. She was completely lost when he stopped in front of an unmarked door. He opened the door and led her into an office. She assumed it was his. There were files stacked neatly on his desk, pens and pencils scattered all over the blotter, and a mug of steaming coffee sitting next to his computer keyboard.

Agent Bray gestured for Charlotte to sit. “Would you like some water or coffee?” he asked.

She shook head, just wanting to get this over with.

He went around to his chair behind the desk and sat down. “Then let’s get started.” He pulled out a digital recorder and set it on the desk. After he pressed the record button, he stated his name, the date and time, her name, and the case number, for his records. Then he asked her to tell him about the phone call.

Charlotte repeated her conversation with Derek for him once more. After the first time, he started to ask her questions. When he took her back through the entire conversation again, he asked for small details and if she heard anything or other people in the background.

Finally, after an hour of questions and repeating herself, Agent Bray put his pen down and stopped the recorder. “Okay, Ms. Fallon. I think that’s enough.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. Now she knew how a rotisserie chicken felt on the spit. No matter what she did, some part of her body was hovering over the fire.

“If your husband contacts you again, please call me immediately. Don’t wait.”

Charlotte nodded. “I will.”

“I’ll walk you out,” he said as he stood.

“That would be great. I don’t think I could find my way out of here alone,” Charlotte said truthfully.

He chuckled and held the door for her as they left the office. They rode back down the first floor on the elevator.

“Thank you for coming in today, Ms. Fallon.”

“Please don’t be offended if I say I hope I never have to see you again.”

He laughed outright and it made him more than average. “No offense taken.”

Charlotte said good-bye and left the field office, still feeling light. After the interview with Agent Bray, she should be miserable and depressed and thinking about all the years she wasted with Derek. Instead, she felt only relief that a resolution was in her future. It may take months or even a year or two, but she would extricate every trace of the bad things Derek had done from her life, one thing at a time.

Now, all she could do was pick up the pieces. Starting with her friendship with Greg. Derek’s revelations had caused damage to the relationship she shared with Greg, but she wanted to fix it. Charlotte wasn’t sure where it would lead, but she did know that she needed his friendship. He gave her the freedom to be who she was without worrying about reproach or rebuff. He accepted her as she was, no questions asked.

Even after the lies and the secrets, Charlotte couldn’t fault him for making the same decisions she would have made had she been in his position. In every way that mattered, he had been there for her and taken care of her when she needed him.

After she climbed into her car and started the engine, Charlotte picked up her phone. Taking a deep breath, she typed out the message to Greg before she lost her nerve.

Dinner. My house. 7 p.m.

Chapter Eighteen

A
fter her meeting with Agent Bray, it was still early, only three-thirty, so Charlotte went back to the office. She did stop for an iced latte on the way. On a whim, she ordered one for Laura, hoping the flavor would be one that she liked.

When she came back into the office, her assistant stared at her in surprise for a moment before she jerked and took the latte Charlotte was holding out for her.

“Ms. Fall…I mean, Charlotte, what are you doing back here?” she asked.

“My appointment ended earlier than I thought so I decided to come back to work and finish out the day.” Granted there was only an hour left in the work day, but she figured she could get something done before five.

Her phone dinged as she entered her office and Charlotte checked the screen. It was Greg.

Let’s go out. Gloria’s ok?

She set her bag on her desk and plopped down in her desk chair before she replied.

Sure. My treat.

Greg’s response was immediate.
Hell no
.

Charlotte grinned and texted back,
Why not?

Greg sent her a frowny face, quickly followed by the words:
U know why.

That wiped the smile off her face. She did know why. It never occurred to her before, but Greg always tried to pay when they went out in college or when the two of them went out for lunch or dinner while she was married to Derek. Charlotte never truly thought about it, just snuck her credit card or money to the waitress as soon as he wasn’t looking.

Now that she knew how Greg felt about her, Charlotte understood why he always tried to pay. He wanted her to look at him differently. When she remembered the way she inserted him into her fantasy Sunday night, heat filled her cheeks. She certainly did see him differently now. He just didn’t know it.